Distractors and distressors in involuntary status decision-making

Psychiatry, Psychology and Law

Volumn 12, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 88-102

  Freckelton, Ian ^a,b  

^a Barrister Crockett Chambers   (Australia)

^b Mental Health Review Board of Victoria ^*  (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DECISION MAKING; DOCTOR PATIENT RELATION; HOSPITAL PATIENT; HUMAN; HYGIENE; JURISPRUDENCE; LAW; MEDICAL PROFESSION; MENTAL DISEASE; MENTAL HEALTH; OUTPATIENT; PERSONALITY DISORDER; REVIEW; SUBSTANCE ABUSE; VIOLENCE;

EID: 22544470302     PISSN: 13218719     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1375/pplt.2005.12.1.88     Document Type: Review

References (51)

1. The intention of this article is that the kinds of prejudicial concepts which are explored will resonate in other areas of legal decision-making - in children's courts, Family Courts, dangerousness assessment in relation to persons found not guilty of serious criminal offences by reason of insanity/mental impairment, personal injury law, refugee decision-making, criminal injuries compensation. In every area of the law, there is a temptation to employ judgmental epithets about certain categories of litigants and witnesses. They can be a short-hand for characteristics or types of persons who are well recognised - 'vexatious litigants', 'psychopaths', 'Munchausens', 'wife-beaters', 'battered women', 'stalkers', 'malingerers', 'sex offenders' (aka as 'sexual deviants/perverts', etc.), 'substance abusers'. As a significant part of decision-making is about categorisation of people and about prediction of risk and risky behaviour, it is common to have resort to epithets. But there can be real dangers in doing so without circumspection in ensuring that the box into which people are being placed is conceptually legitimate, that people are being placed into the right box and to the broader context within which the person and the box are to be found.
2. ML Perlin, 'Half-wracked Prejudice Leaped Forth: Sanism, Pretextuality and Why and How Mental Disability Law Developed As it Did' (1999) 10 Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues 3 at 4.
3. (1998) 195 CLR 232 at 269.
4. For an overview of therapeutic jurisprudence see the Therapeutic Jurisprudence Network: http://www.law.arizona.edu/depts/upr-intj/
5. See eg B Winick, The Right to Refuse Mental Health Treatment, American Psychological Association, Washington DC, 1997;
6. I Freckelton, 'Ideological Divarication in Mental Health Decision-making' (2003) 10(2) Psychiatry, Psychology and Law 390.
7. See eg Winick, 1997, op cit.
8. I b i d.
9. See BJ Winick, Civil Commitment: A Therapeutic Jurisprudence Model, Carolina Academic Press, Durham, Nth Carolina, 2005;
10. BJ Winick, 'Coercion and Mental Health Treatment' (1997) 74 Denver Law Review 1145;
11. TT Tyler, 'The Psychological Consequences of Judicial Procedures: Implications for Civil Commitment Hearings' in DB Wexler and BJ Winick (eds), Law in a Therapeutic Key, Carolina Academic Press, Durham, Nth Carolina, 1996.
12. See eg S Du Fresne, 'Preparation and Presentation of Medical Evidence for Civil Commitment Hearings' (1996) 3 Journal of Law and Medicine 256;
13. S Du Fresne, 'Therapeutic Potential in Review of Involuntary Detention' in K Diesfeld and I Freckelton (ed), Involuntary Detention and Therapeutic Jurisprudence: International Perspectives on Civil Commitment, Ashgate, Dartmouth, 2003.
14. See eg BJ Winick, 'The Side Effects of Incompetency Labeling and the Implications for Mental Health Law' in DB Wexler and BJ Winick (eds), Law in a Therapeutic Key, Carolina Academic Press, Durham, Nth Carolina, 1996.
15. See further I Freckelton, 'Involuntary Detention Decision-making, Criteria in Hearing Procedures: An Opportunity for Therapeutic Jurisprudence in Action' in K Diesfeld and I Freckelton (ed), Involuntary Detention and Therapeutic Jurisprudence: International Perspectives on Civil Commitment, Ashgate, Dartmouth, 2003.
16. See eg I Freckelton, 'Ideological Divarication in Mental Health Decision-making' (2003) 10(2) Psychiatry, Psychology and Law 390.
17. See eg S Stevens, 'Where is the Asylum?' in K Diesfeld and I Freckelton (ed), Involuntary Detention and Therapeutic Jurisprudence: International Perspectives on Civil Commitment, Ashgate, Dartmouth, 2003.
18. See eg BJ Winick, Civil Commitment: A Therapeutic Jurisprudence Model, Carolina Academic Press, Durham, Nth Carolina, 2005, at p145ff.
19. See further K Diesfeld, 'Insights on Insight: the Impact of Extra-legislative Factors on Decisions to Discharge Detained Patients' in K Diesfeld and I Freckelton (ed), Involuntary Detention and Therapeutic Jurisprudence: International Perspectives on Civil Commitment, Ashgate, Dartmouth, 2003;
20. K Diesfeld, Insight: Unpacking the Concept in Mental Health Law' (2003) 10(1) Psychiatry, Psychology and Law 63.
21. Unreported Victorian Supreme Court, 9 December 1998 at p24-25.
22. Ibid, at p28.
23. Unreported VMHRBD, 27 September 2000.
24. [2003] MHRBD (Vic).
25. See eg X Amador and A David (ed), Insight and Psychosis, OUP, New York, 1998.
26. (1997) 2 MHRBD 465
27. Unreported, VMHRBD, 22 February 2005.
28. See eg I Freckelton, Madness, Migration and Misfortune: The Challenge of the Bleak Tale of Cornelia Rau' (2005) 12(1) Psychiatry, Psychology and Law.
29. Re SL, unreported, VMHRBD, unreported, 27 October 2003.
30. Re AC, unreported, VMHRBD, 22 July 2004.
31. See K Jamison, Touched with Fire, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1994;
32. K Jamison, An Unquiet Mind, Vintage Books, Random House, New York, 1996.
33. Unreported, VMHRBD, 2004.
34. See eg Re MH, unreported, Victorian Mental Health Review Board, 5 February 2003.
35. See eg Mental Health Act 1986 (Vic), s8(2)(g); Mental Health Act 2000 (Qld), s12(2)(e); Mental Health Act 1996 (WA), s4(2)(b); Mental Health Act 1990 (NSW), s11(g); Mental Health and Related Services Act (NT), s6(3)(c); Mental Health (Treatment and Care) Act 1994 (ACT), s5(g)
36. Unreported, VMHRBD, 2004.
37. Unreported, VMHRBD, 22 February 2005.
38. Unreported, VMHRBD, 10 May 2001.
39. Unreported, VMHRBD, 22 July 2004.
40. See D Weeks and J James, Eccentrics: A Study of Sanity and Strangeness, Kodansha International, New York, 1995.
41. Unreported, VMHRBD, 22 February 2005.
42. Re SL, unreported, VMHRBD, 27 October 2003.
43. See generally RD Hare, Without Conscience: the Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us, Pocket Books, New York, 1993.
44. See Farrell v The Queen (1998) 194 CLR 286.
45. (1990) 1 MHRBD (Vic) 160.
46. Re KMC (1989) 1 MHRBD (Vic) 253 at 255.
47. (1994) 2 MHRBD (Vic) 188 at 192.
48. See also Mental Health Act 2000 (Qld), s12(2)(i); Mental Health (Treatment and Care) Act 1994 (ACT), s5(i); Mental Health Act 1990 (NSW), s11(i); Mental Health and Related Services Act (NT), s6(3)(c); Mental Health Act 1996 (WA), s4(2)(f); Mental ealth Act 1996 (Tas), s4(2)(a).
49. (1996) 2 MHRBD (Vic) 353.
50. (1996) 2 MHRBD (Vic) 358.
51. Unreported, MHRBD, 28 May 2003.